Speaking from the Liberal Democrat conference fringe in Bournemouth the former party leader Sir Paddy Ashdown has sounded a warning that the next general election will be the ugliest, most divisive and most destructive for a generation.

Sir Paddy made the prediction while launching his pamphlet, The Invisible Revolution at the Independent newspaper fringe platform.

Speaking to a full house Sir Paddy sought to put dramatic political events of the last couple of weeks in a wider context.

Protests like the fuel blockades that have swept across the UK and much of Europe were, he said, due to the failure of politicians to devise an adequate response to the process of globalisation and new technology which has created a power vacuum in democracy.

National governments were often unable to deliver what their citizens wanted due to gloablisation, he said, leading to disillusion with conventional politics.

The importance of the demonstrations should not be understated, he said, as they had fundamentally "changed both the politics of the UK and its governability".

They represented a "crisis in democracy".

Speaking without a microphone or notes Sir Paddy turned to the coming election saying: "I think the general election we are going to see - is going to be potentially the most ugly, the most divisive, the most destructive of the political and social fabric of our country that we have seen in any of our political lifetimes."

Skimming over the history of the twentieth century he said the major creeds - socialism, communism and unrestrained capitalism - had all died.

All that was left for politicians like the prime minister was a kind of "managerialism" which left them in what, he said, was the dangerous position of not having an ideological centre.

After identifying the problem Sir Paddy had a solution at the ready - Liberalism.

This creed he said was best adapted to be fluid situation created by the internet and economic globalisation.

He called for a rethink of political structures which would recognise that Westminster was no longer the best vehicle for the UK to channel its power into.

The nation-state would, he insisted, be forced increasingly to devolve its political powers upwards to supra-national organisations and downwards to individuals and regional bodies, he said.

"The issue of petrol prices may go away, but the events of last week are part of something much deeper, much more profound."

"Whenever power migrates outside the institutions created to control it, you have to have change."

One of his proposals to create a world with greater stability to guard against the problems he described was a "currency stability pact" between the euro and the US dollar and a further development of the EU's political institutions.

Leaving his audience with a call to action he said although the future may be a period of chaos and flux he predicted it would be "a good age for radicals, if that is what they dare to be".